12 Exact Moments AEW Booking Stopped Making Sense
2. The Babyface Super-Team Device (June 28, 2023)
It used to be that AEW’s hold on alliances was very tight and logical.
If you had a loyal friend, they’d back you up in a fight. If that friendship was strained, they might be reluctant to help. This was so well observed in the early days of Dynamite that the decision whether or not to back up a fellow babyface was a key phase in a wrestler’s character development. Hangman Page specialised in making these decisions. AEW installed a much-needed rule, exercising a promotional advantage over Vince McMahon’s WWE: babyfaces should have friends.
Eventually, this frittered away.
The Conglomeration (which for a time was very charming, granted) accelerated a certain booking crutch: the babyface super-team, a good, early example of which unfolded on the June 28, 2023 Dynamite. Orange Cassidy, El Hijo del Vikingo and Keith Lee defeated Daniel Garcia, Daddy Magic and Cool Hand Ang. As many of these matches are, it was loads of fun in and of itself. Tony Khan subsequently became fixated on this type of match: wholesome strange bedfellows babyfaces defeating a team of heels.
This quirk is a cool novelty for live crowds, and a neat way of adding levity to the TV show in the midcard, but what does it truly achieve?
Very little - and, what’s more, when the time comes for a babyface to get saved, their new pals desert them. Orange Cassidy made dozens of friends in these sorts of matches throughout 2023, but they were nowhere to be found when he needed them the most. This vacuum business adds up to a whole load of nothing. AEW never feels quite as empty and trivial when Khan books this stuff for no real purpose.
How many of these matches do you actually remember?